


Closure

by Mems



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Drabble, Gen, Hurt, M/M, One Shot, eruri - Freeform, why do all my favs suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7703428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mems/pseuds/Mems
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life after Erwin, wherein Levi doesn't move on and the world keeps crumbling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closure

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to write this as how I see the story for Levi continuing, should he defeat BT but not die, as I'm feeling he will in the coming chapters. Bittersweet, not exactly fluffy and not entirely closure for him until the very end. Anyway, enjoy. I'm still emotional.

 He keeps himself alive, knowing that Erwin wouldn’t want him to die for him. No matter how much the possibility was there, Erwin kept his death at arms’ length, a hypothetical that wouldn’t come to pass. He gave Erwin peace but knows him giving up his life would bring Erwin none, and in the end his life was always for Erwin.

The Beast Titan is felled, as he promised, and the battlefield quiets. He stands with broken blades in his hands, and he waits, still, for Erwin’s words of praise to come to him. What he’s met with is silence and realization.

There’s nothing left for him here, nothing but ruin and death.

Levi retires from the legion. He returns behind the walls. There, they call him a hero; they offer him a home, money. They forget they hated the man that made him who he was, so he turns their offers away. He doesn’t want them, doesn’t need them. After all his time in the military, he’d settle for a dry cot and a supply of hot water with little more; the small cottage behind Rose serves him well enough with that.

He does what he always talked about with Erwin and opens a tea shop. He doesn’t hesitate when he names it Smith’s Tea. There’s a blend he makes, subtle in its aroma and bold in its taste that’s just the kind Erwin would like, with hints of apple and cinnamon. He sells it as a special in October, and drinks one cup on the fourteenth. They’re the small ways he remembers Erwin, and makes his memory linger behind walls that never appreciated him half as much as he did.  

The kids never visit. He gets a letter from Mikasa a few years down saying she’s sorry for everything, everything. She claims Eren is, too, but he never gets a letter and Levi never replies. He turns the parchment into kindling on the December twenty-fifth that it arrives, watches its words turn to ash as he sips his apple-cinnamon tea.

A month later, Rose falls. Armin sends a letter then, asking Levi for his help. He contemplates sending the letter to the same fate as Mikasa’s, but chooses otherwise. Levi writes back, a denial. His goals for the Legion ended a long time ago; he won’t be coming back.

After re-reading the apology portion of Armin’s letter, he apologizes, too.

Hanji visits, sometimes. She’s wearier with every visit, weighted with the burdens Erwin left behind until she snaps and tells him it’s his fault, everything is his fault – _if he’d just saved Erwin –!_

He can’t help but agree.

Here and there he has a few men that he sees. It’s never for long; his sense of commitment has waned over time and true intimacy is a road he refuses to travel. It’s carnal, nothing more, and when they fuck him he insists it’s from behind so he can pretend it’s Erwin draped over his body and not a stranger. The illusion isn’t long to last and eventually he stops trying to break the part of his mind that knows there’s only one Erwin Smith and he can’t have him anymore.

Time passes and Levi doesn’t move on. He thrives, he lives – but he clings to Erwin’s memory because he’s the only one left who still cares that much. Erwin’s name hasn’t left another’s lips for longer than Levi would care to suffer, unless he counts the times he’s whispered it to the darkness of his cottage, just to hear the sound of it again.

When the last wall is breached, and Sina falls at last, Levi stays in his tea shop. Humanity has been pushed to the brink, past the precipice. If there had been hope, it’s gone now. The years of fighting the titans back has only delayed this inevitable outcome. There’s chaos outside his shop, screams of parents and children, soldiers scrambling. Levi remains calm, though, seated by his window with a cup of that apple tea in one hand.

He holds Erwin’s patch with a smile.

_Soon._


End file.
